Hey vs Inbox Zero

Hey is a standalone email service built as an alternative to Gmail and Outlook. Instead of connecting to your existing Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 account, Hey gives you a brand-new @hey.com email address and a completely separate platform with its own opinionated approach to how email should work. That said, you'll have to let all of your family and friends know about your new email address.

It's not so clear who Hey was building for when we first got access.

Was it the software lover? The tech founder? The designer? Nope! But rather my mother, and maybe children? Hey clearly wasn't designed for the keyboard-shortcut-loving, productivity-obsessed founder crowd.

The product uses huge icons, childish text, and bright color gradients everywhere. They even tried renaming the familiar features like Inbox and Snooze to "Imbox" and "Bubbleup." It just doesn't connect with me, as someone who loves minimal, fast, professional-grade interfaces. But, if you've been looking for something lighter and less "corporate", maybe it's something you'd like?

• Built-in email screening
• Fresh @hey.com address with little to no spam history
• Opinionated, simplified inbox structure
• Custom domain support available

• No integrations or API (no Zapier, CRM, Gmail, Outlook connections)
• Full platform lock-in with a @hey.com address
• Not well-suited for business users who rely on ecosystem tools
• Polarizing UI (large buttons, bright gradients, renamed features)

Hey is primarily geared toward personal users who are looking to leave Google or Microsoft behind and trying an entirely new email client.

However, that does come at a cost... If you're fully moving away from the broader Google or Microsoft ecosystems, this means giving up the integrations, APIs, and flexibility that most businesses rely on.

So, while Hey is generally not well-suited for business users who depend on tools like CRMs, automation platforms (e.g., Zapier), or advanced calendar integrations.

This is Hey's most differentiated feature. They have a built-in gatekeeper situation, so before a new sender can land in your inbox, you must approve them. If you don't approve them, they never get through.

Credit where credit is due, this feature dramatically cuts back on spam and gives you more control over who gets your attention.

Hey doesn’t use a traditional inbox. Instead, it separates emails into different buckets like "Imbox" (for conversations) and "The Feed" (for newsletters).

The intention is to make inbox zero feel achievable and reduce the constant overwhelm of a single endless stream of emails.

It is a very opinionated structure that you don’t customize or control, but instead, adopt. For some people, that simplicity is refreshing. For others, especially power users who are used to labels, filters, and custom workflows, it will feel limiting.

• Ultra-short 2-character addresses like ab@heydotcom are $999/year, and 3-character addresses like abc@heydotcom are $349/year.
• All other @hey.com email addresses, 4-characters or more, are just $99/year.

Inbox Zero (not to be confused with what Superhuman Mail refers to getting through all your emails) is a layer atop your Gmail that helps you to easily unsubscribe from newsletters and automate label/forwarding flows all via AI.

The area that we use and love with Inbox Zero is where it helps us tame our email inbox, sort of like Mailman, but it focuses more on actually leveraging AI to automatically take action on your email (or unsubscribe if you're getting many newsletters but not reading any of them.

One thing to keep in mind with Inbox Zero (and how it differentiates from its competitors) is that it is an open source AI email assistant with thousands of stars on GitHub, so go and check out the code yourself if you'd like:

Inbox Zero Open-Source GitHub Rep

• Basic: $6/month on annual tier + $1.50/month for each additional email account
• Business: $12/month on annual tier + $3/month for each additional email account